Best New Band 2012

10 local acts that Portland’s music insiders think you should hear.

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IMAGE: Mike Grippi

1. Radiation City

165 Points

Formed: 2010

Sounds like:Jetsons-era doo-wop

Musicians always say their band is “like a family.” But
Radiation City—a Portland outfit that features two couples and a
particularly boyish-looking fifth member on bass—actually acts like one.
And in the second hour of a three-hour marathon interview at Northeast
Portland’s houselike Beech Street Parlor, the family secrets start to
slip. There’s very little sex on tour, but plenty of booze. Most of the
band members took ecstasy together after their recent release show at
Rontoms. There’s a new T-shirt in the works—which, for whatever reason,
seems more hush-hush than any of the band’s internal dramas.

Last year, Radiation
City co-founders Lizzy Ellison and Cameron Spies nearly broke up on
tour. “We had this argument where [Lizzy] was like, ‘We’re done!,’ and I
wanted to punch the window out,” says Spies, who is missing a bottom
tooth from recent dental surgery. “We had to stop at a gas station to
defuse the situation.”

“I will say whatever
the hell I want to say. I don’t have a filter,” Ellison admits. Spies,
on the other hand, “doesn’t have a backbone.” He also farts a lot.

At this juncture, the
whole band embraces self-evaluation. Drummer Randy Bemrose is “the most
stoic member of this band, and probably of most people that exist,”
Spies says, but he’s prone to bouts of extreme intensity. Ever-smiling
bassist Matt Rafferty keeps his secrets to himself; he annoys Ellison
greatly on tour, “but that’s because he’s like my brother,” she insists.
Multi-instrumentalist and singer Patty King is—well, she’s perfect. She
sits back watching the madness unfold in front of her.

“I think that, and
this is on the record, as much of a bitch as Lizzy can be, it’s actually
really good for this band’s honesty and critical nature,” says a
grinning Spies. “She will say the shit that nobody wants to say, but is
actually really important.” He reflects for a moment, plucking a loose
hair from Ellison’s shoulder. “And I’m not saying she’s always right
when she’s a bitch.”

Ellison smiles tightly and shrugs in agreement: “He does say I’m a bitch all the time.”

This is Radiation
City. To take the members’ playful infighting for weakness would be a
mistake: When it comes to its music, the band has a work ethic that’s
truly impressive. Songs are written and rewritten, recorded and
re-recorded, scrutinized by committee and thrown out if they are not
“Radiation City enough.” The group has an internal power structure (“I
think of Cam as executive producer and me and Lizzy as co-producers,”
Bemrose says) that is well-defined. In concert, the band members are
obsessive about live sound to a degree that can infuriate sound guys.
The group is so fiercely defensive of its sound that the members aren’t
sure if they’ll ever work with an outside producer.

Radiation City’s
handcrafted sound is harder to describe than its internal dynamics. At
the core of the band’s first two releases—last year’s full-length, The Hands That Take You, and the Cool Nightmare
EP released in March—is a collision of old and new. Drum machines
mingle with bossa nova rhythms, and Phil Spector-style echo-chamber
vocals fall over Pulp-esque guitar grooves. Always, especially in the
voices of Rad City’s two female singers, there’s a healthy dose of soul.

“We
all really like music you can sink your teeth into,” King says. That
would explain recent live covers—the band knows a lot of them—of Ike and
Tina Turner’s “I Idolize You” or the Beatles’ “Happiness Is a Warm
Gun.”

One
of the most requested songs in Radiation City’s catalog is its
gut-wrenching take on “At Last,” made famous by Etta James. It’s a song
that’s hard to imagine another Portland band pulling off, and the Rad
City version—which, wisely, the band plays only as an occasional
treat—has been known to move fans to tears.

But
even in Radiation City’s staggeringly epic originals, there’s a soulful
streak that most bands of its generation only dish out in small, ironic
helpings.

The genesis of that
soul influence dates to the early days of the band, when Spies and
Ellison first met and fell in love under unideal circumstances. “I wrote
some Aretha-inspired songs and said, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we started
a soul group?’ to Cam. But to make that come across appropriately is so
delicate,” Ellison says. “We’re not—black. We’re not churchy gospel
singers. But that music touches something in you, and that’s our main
goal.”

“We all know we can
do it,” Rafferty says of finding the band’s soul within its complex,
layered sound. “Because there are these moments where it’s
happening—where you’re reaching this magical vortex. But we’re
improvising. There’s no formula that we resort to, like, ‘This is the
next winning step.’ Any minute it could blow up in our faces.”

Of
course, Radiation City doesn’t call itself a soul band—its outdated
MySpace page uses the genre “tape music,” an allusion to Spies and
Ellison’s cassette-only label, Apes Tapes. If anything, though, the band
tries to create a feeling. “And if it doesn’t hit that spot, we all
freak out,” Rafferty says.

That feeling is
surprisingly universal. “My dad is in the front row of our shows giving
me high-fives,” Spies says. “That never happened with my old band.”

It’s become
increasingly clear that Radiation City has struck a chord with Portland.
Recent shows have sold out, and the band is increasingly in demand for
national tours and after placing 12th on last year’s Best New Band poll.
This year Rad City received more votes (by far) than any band in the
poll’s history. That’s something that makes the group slightly nervous.

“We’ve heard from a couple people that this scenario can produce stress,” Ellison says.

"In the low usage areas, we found that our vehicles sit idle four times longer, ultimately affecting overall vehicle availability for the Portland membership base, as well as parking for the Portland community."

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